Have You Lost Your Muchness?

What Are We “Supposed” To do And Why Does It Matter?

When did connecting with people become so difficult?

When we were kids we could kick a ball in someone’s direction and that was it. We started playing together and then we were friends.

But as adults? People stay in their protective bubbles with shields over their eyes, plugs in their ears and gloves on their hands -figuratively speaking- all so they don’t have to acknowledge what is going on in the world around them. They talk about the weather, about inflation, certain safe topics that they have learned they’re supposed to mention, supposed to care about.

And then they ask the well practised question, “Well, what do you do?” And I think, well, what do you mean? I do a lot of things. But what they really mean is, “How do you make a living and how high is your income? Do you earn more or less than me? Out of the list of the common, “approved” jobs, which one did you choose to dedicate the majority of your life to?”

Isn’t that depressing?

People ask that question as though the answer would actually tell them who the other person is. As if it would paint an accurate picture of who they are as a person, how they tick, the very essence of their soul, even. But in reality what we do, how we earn our money, is one of the least interesting things about us. And it certainly isn’t the equivalent of who we are.

A world of followers and copycats

There are a lot of people out there who are intent on following the path laid out for them. Never thinking for themselves, never questioning. Never allowing themselves to feel things, want things or have any original opinion about anything.

They go to school and they copy the people around them. They dress like them, talk like them and somewhere along the way they forget that they were supposed to be an individual. Then, before they figure that out, they’re off to college. They seal their fates in society by taking on massive student loans because “that’s what you do”. They were taught that they need to go to college or university to get a good job. And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? In the system’s mind anyway. Our lives have become centred around how we can contribute to society. How we can bend over and let the toxic foundation of society be built on our backs while the system simultaneously sticks knives in them.

We are not free, but we can be

Life is not about how we choose to be used. Because that is not a choice. Choosing between different ways of being kept, of being used and of being ruled over… That just means that we are anything but free no matter which of the laid out paths we choose.

How we choose to earn money says nothing about who we are and what we are passionate about. What makes us get up in the morning. What makes us think, “I am so glad I am alive.” In fact, consumerism, capitalism and money… All of it is as far from the meaning of life as we could possibly get.

We’re groomed into being cogs in the machine that is society from the moment we are conceived. We are tagged and given a bar code that acts as a tracking number and aims to decide for us who we are and how we will live. Throughout life we are taught we aren’t special, that other people’s opinions of us matter more than our own, and that grades and other ways of measuring our achievements are more important than our mental health and happiness.

We are told to study so we can get a good job, but by the time we graduate we realise the truth. We see that even after we spent all that money on a seemingly great education, there still aren’t any jobs for us. We are offered customer service jobs and data input jobs that require no experience, no education. And our fancy titles and diplomas? They hang and collect dust in the homes we can barely afford to pay for.

We’ll have to work ourselves to the bone for the majority of our lives while coping with all of it by keeping our eyes on the price, on the illusive dream of retirement. Oh, the magical retirement. The one many of us won’t be able to afford. And there will be many who won’t even make it to that age because they’ll be long gone by then. Overworked, poisoned by the air, the food and the water, unable to afford health care. Paying a fortune for a fancy insurance that is happy to take their money but have no intention of actually helping out when SHTF.

On top of everything else, we are expected to “settle down”. Get in a committed relationship, have a mortgage we can’t pay off for a house that’s too big and have 2.5 kids that we raise based on the “well-meaning instructions” given to us by society and other parents.

And I ask, what is it all for? All of these things we are supposed to do. Lives dedicated to doing only what is expected of us.

Are we alive or just breathing?

Most people aren’t really living. They’re just mindlessly following. What they are doing with their time, with their money, with their lives…They’re just copying what everyone else are doing. What they believe they should be doing. They are doing so because they are trying to be accepted, approved of, trying to feel included and trying to find love and meaning. But when you have no idea who you are as a person, and have lived your life dedicated to an act, a game of pretend where you just copy the norms and say what others expect you to say, act how they want you to act… How can we expect to find love, meaning or purpose in the midst of all that? When we are so far from the truth that we have lost ourselves we cannot truly connect with another human being. Even if we did, it would be our characters connecting with each other. We, who we actually are, wouldn’t be the ones connecting. It wouldn’t be our purpose that we find. It would be a lie. All of it.

Where do we go from here?

So what’s left? When you know what you don’t want, but you only have a vague idea of what you do want? I don’t know. I am still finding the answer to that. But I think a good start is to let go of what doesn’t align. What doesn’t feel right and belonged to the character life forced us to play. The first step has to be to walk away from all of that. To shed the old skin. To accept that we are now in a time of transformation, a metamorphosis of sorts. We don’t know what we will become, who we will turn out to be. But isn’t that the exciting part? Only when we acknowledge, “This isn’t me” and actively move away from all that does not align, can we have the space in our lives, in our hearts to fit that which does align. And only then can we find out who we are.

It’s like the saying by Lewis Carroll. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

We must move forward

When we are changing, shedding layers and figuring out who we are, our only direction may be moving forward. And all we can do is commit ourselves to getting to know ourselves. Trying things out, experiencing things and allowing ourselves to feel things, to form opinions. To have likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams.

If we cut out all of the excess and allow ourselves to just be there in the moment, discover ourselves and live. Truly live… Then I think we will be alright. I don’t think we will be caught in the web of lies again. Because when we see how good it feels to be who we are, who we were meant to be, we will have grown out of any box they could try to put us in. We will have outgrown the rat race and the pursuit of approval. Of fitting in.

Life… that will be where we fit in. When we live authentic lives, that is when we are truly living. And life is for the living after all. There is no need to for any of us to “fit in” beyond that. We are all meant to be different, and we are together in that too.

We must not lose our souls. We must not forget the fact that we are individuals. We aren’t “just” humans and our lives should not be ruled by what someone somewhere thought we’re supposed to do. This human experience is about more than that. We are worth more than that.

From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole I’ve been told where I must go and who I must be. I’ve been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I’ve been accused of being Alice and of not being Alice but this is my dream. I’ll decide where it goes from here.

Alice in Wonderland

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